


drift off into the velvety arms of the night

by Griffy (honklust)



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Behavior, Face Punching, Fake AH Crew, Gen, Passing Out, Underground Wrestling, Violence, death mention, rimmy tim, songfic (kinda)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 05:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21192401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honklust/pseuds/Griffy
Summary: The lights are so fucking bright. The crowd’s gone silent. He’s sitting on his ass, and he looks down at his hands, at his gloves, purple and orange and yellow and now red, so red it’s almost glowing, it’s all he can do to look at it, to see the dark chunks sticking in the creases, clinging to his knuckles and-





	drift off into the velvety arms of the night

**Author's Note:**

> This is sorta-kinda a songfic based on Choked Out (and the whole album Beat the Champ by the Mountain Goats) because every time I listen to it I think about Jeremy.

_His hands are shaking, eyes focused on the lights above him – bleary and bright, sharpening to pinpricks as sweat drips down the back of his neck. The crowd is screaming, howling like a windstorm. They’re booing him, shrieking insults, berating him._

_It’s perfect. It’s everything. All eyes on him, he’s not going home with a wad of bloodstained bills in his back pocket this time, but it doesn’t fucking matter. They can hate him all they goddamned want. Nobody in that crowd would stand a chance if they were inside the ring with him. They know it. He knows it. The guy who sells his agent his fucking hairgel knows it._

_Rimmy Tim is violence incarnate. He is cruel and malicious and evil, and he has never won a fucking match, but that doesn’t matter. His brutality is known statewide – hell, worldwide. There are whispers of him on the lips of underground fans across the continental United States._

_He flexes his fingers, draws his adrenaline-bleary gaze down down down until he’s looking at red, red blood – smeared across the mat, streaking up the white plastic sheeting like paint. Sweat and blood, some of it his, most of it the other guys. It all smears together in his vision – color and motion, muscle-memory. _

_He fucked up._

_He should’ve known better. Should’ve followed directions._

_Should’ve listened._

_But he was tired of listening, wasn’t he?_

_The listening was what kept him on his back on the mat, kept the air forced out of his lungs, kept money in his bank account. Listening to the greasy rat-bastard who owned him, who managed him, who promised him one day, one day, one day you’ll win, we swear. One day you’ll stop being a heel. One day you’ll come up. You’ll ascend._

_He was tired of one day. He was tired of promises. He was tired of listening._

_The feeling of knuckle meeting cheekbone had been excellent, had rattled down through his forearm, his bicep, his shoulderblade, nestled itself in his chest – a reverberation that was constant, urged him forward, pushed him into more violent, kinetic motion._

_He was nothing in this moment. He was cruel, he was hungry, he wanted to win._

_He’d broken his hand against his face, kept going, kept hitting until he felt the crunch, felt the spatter, warm and wet and he could hear the crowd starting to lose it, could hear them get louder and louder and panicked and then there were hands on him-_

_Hands on his shoulders, pulling him back, and there was a body on the floor, a pool of perfect red, and he was laughing, laughing, laughing—_

_The lights are so fucking bright. The crowd’s gone silent. He’s sitting on his ass, and he looks down at his hands, at his gloves, purple and orange and yellow and now red, so red it’s almost glowing, it’s all he can do to look at it, to see the dark chunks sticking in the creases, clinging to his knuckles and-_

_“Hey, asshole.” _

_There’s legs in front of him, and he looks up, and the adrenaline in his muscles is singing, begging for more. He feels like a starved animal, a caged beast finally let loose. He’d hit this man until he stopped moving, too. He’d just keep on swinging until his heart gave out._

_He’s laughing still, voice hoarse and croaky. He knows he’s fucked. He’s ruined his life, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t need money anymore. He just needs action and motion and then he’ll lay down and fucking die—_

“You’re a nut, huh? Jeeeesus.”_ The legs move, and now it’s a man, kneeling, a curly red mohawk and the nastiest smile Jeremy’s ever seen in his life. The light playing off his dark eyes makes him look inhuman. He’s a demon made flesh. Jeremy’s smile widens, cracks the corners of his split lip._

“You wanna be a Fake, kid?”_ And that means something – that means something he can’t even wrap his head around right now, not with all the noise, not with all the blood rushing in his ears._

_Maybe he died, actually. Maybe this was all a dream, some blessed desperate final kick of his brainstem, pinned up to the dark insides of his eyelids, letting him feel happy for the first time in his fucking life. Sure, J. You won. You beat the bastard. And now? Aw, buddy, now the gang you’ve idolized since you learned about crime as a kid – now they’re gonna hire you. Ain’t that sweet? Okay, you can stop twitching. Goodnight._

_He’s saying yeah, yes, yes please, please, please and he can’t stop himself, his mouth is moving but he has no clue what’s coming out. And then, just like that, the whole arena starts tilting off its axis. He can see the guy laughing, can hear it in his skull like a death rattle, and consciousness leaves him, wraps him safe and sound in its arms._

_Maybe when he wakes up, he’ll be down one career and up a better one. Maybe he’ll just be in prison. Maybe he won’t wake up at all._

_He’ll take any outcome, honestly. He’s just happy he doesn’t have to keep listening to that motherfucker backstage tell him _next time, I promise. Next time.


End file.
